Sites that rely on user-generated content need as much promotion as they can muster. The travel start-up Nextstop has made an admirable beginning to this aim with a feature on its services appearing in the New York Times. The homemade travel guide provider made its official debut on Monday (June 1st) as it attempts to push travellers away from 'traditional' tourist spots.
With the strapline 'discover what other people love all over the world', the site's technology makes it easy for visitors to create a multi-media guide of their hometown. Rejecting the idea of professional editors, the site's creators Carl Sjogreen, Adrian Graham and Charles Lin have instead provided an online platform that will be built up through personal recommendations.
Appearing in an article entitled An Online Guide for Tourists, by Locals, the site was described as a risky proposition as it requires a group of fanatical users to supply it with travel guides.
However, Nextstop already has an active community that was built up during its beta phase. This has generated recommendations for more than 100 countries and 1,000 cities around the world, with half of the registered users providing content for the site.
Mr Sjogreen, who is a former project manager of Google Calendar, told the newspaper that he wants the site to "get the experiences of people who actually live there and love it and can give you a sense of what the place is all about".
Cleverly, Nextstop is based around a voting system that gives prominence to users and guides that are popular. It also has a badge system of green circles, blue squares and black diamonds that ranks its users. The company's website contains a number of interactive features, including tools that allow images to be easily taken from Facebook or Google.
This New York Times piece is not the only press that the start-up has received. During its beta the website used the online news providers TechCrunch and Thrillist as promotional vehicles for its official launch. The site also contains a regularly updated blog with links to any articles about its services.
"A launch is just the beginning," wrote Mr Sjogreen on the website's blog. "We're excited to have reached this point, but even more excited to keep working to make Nextstop more useful every day."
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